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•Text* By* Dr • A - B • Hyde* DenverToiP 

WITH INTRODUCTORIES BY 

BISHOPS JOHN*H-yiNCENT*S*E-RHENDRlX‘ 

• IL LUS TR ATIONS • BY- E -A-FILLEAU- 

FROM-THE-PRESS-OF-HUDSON-KIM BERLY-CO ■' 

























































































p 1 


















ART GLIMPSES 



OF'. 


METHODISM 

IN TWENTY m RTS 

Showing the Origin, Growth, and Progress of that Greatest of 
Religious Movements, \\ high has, within a Century’s Time, 
Encircled the Globe with Steeples, and Made Its 
Christian Influence Felt in Every 
Civilized Land 


TEXT BY A. B. HYDE, D.D. 

Professor of Greek in the University of Denver ; Member of Philological Association, of American 
Society of Biblical Exegesis, of Summer School of Philosophy, Etc. ; lately 
Professor of Biblical Literature, Allegheny College, Pa. 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. A. FILLEAU 

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI 


4** C 0PYft/fyp 




18 )8 


PUBLISHED BY 

HUDSON-KIMBERLY PUBLISHING COMPANY 

Kansas City, Missouri 









B X S63I 
■ H 15 


Copyright May, 1894 , by 

E. FILLEAU, 

KANSAS CITY, MO. 


S 


LC Control Number 



tmp9 6 025733 








































>^RT ( 9 LIMPSES OF^ETHODISM 



5fc revival ot Christian life, some aspects ot which this work is to 
present, was not now seen for the first time on the soil of 
England. In the name and form which we know, it rose a cen¬ 
tury and a hall ago. It came to its place to stay in the freshness 
of a perpetual morning, through which the Sun of Righteousness 
sheds beams of healing upon a weary and suffering world. But 
this day-spring from on high had its forerunners, of which each 
had its hour ot ascendancy oyer the darkness and struggle of its time. 
Six hundred years alter Gregory the Great had sent Augustine to begin 
at Canterbury the conversion of heathen England, and Bertha, like Lvdia 

f \ T ^ f“ 'i 

at Philippi, had swung wide for her people the Gospel door; four hun¬ 
dred years after Theodore had framed for the English Church its abiding 
system of parish, cathedral, and diocese; gloom, loss, and disorder had 
come upon the land, and religion was waning rapidly. 

Then arose Erancis of Assisi, in Italy, a man saintly, loving, and 
sincere, whose simple preaching called the people to repentance. His zeal, 
like Wesleys, inspired thousands to live his life and do his work. His 
itinerants, clad (to our day) like John the Baptist, asked but food and 
shelter. They gave themselves to the poor, the sick, the prisoner. They 
preached in language “understanded of the people” at street corners and 
in market-places. Blameless and harmless, loving and self-denying, they 
made Christianity a new life in the land, rising from the lowest through 
all o-rades of English life. Alas! in twenty-five years the Pranciscans, 
the Weslevans of their period, by applause, wealth, and power suddenly 
cominm were beguiled, and their light went out in darkness. 








2 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


Another revival came. John Wiclif, the first Protestant, the 
founder of English prose, after putting the Bible into the English tongue, 
had, in his church service at Lutterworth, been struck by the air-drawn 
dagger of paralysis, and on the last day of 1384 good men carried him 
to his burial and made great lamentation over him. He had formed 
companies of “simple preachers,’ who, in rude dress and plain speech, 
read his Bible and spoke of Christ to the common people. Called Lol¬ 
lards, “ Babblers, in contempt, they carried comfort and blessing far and 
wide until “every second man was a Lollard. I hen Henry IV. let 
loose upon these good men and women the fierce wrath of the Church, 
and Sawtree, a clergyman, was the first to burn, shedding on English air 
a taint unsmelt since the far-off days of the Druids. Lollardism was 
trodden out in blood, and the new life perished. 

El even hundred years after Augustine and three hundred after 
Wiclif, religion in England was again in sore need of revival. There 
had been enough of churchly struggle. Latimer and Ridley had been 
burned at Oxford, and the granite slab at Smithfield, now the great mar¬ 
ket in the heart of London, tells of martyrs whose better record is on 
high. Cromwell, second to no English ruler, broken with public care 
and private sorrow, had breathed out his life in prayer for “the glory of 
Christ in the land," while the gale that at his death wrecked shipping, 
town, and forest seemed to tell of worse not far awav. 

The Pilgrims had planted the faith in New England, and saintly 
men—Baxter and Howe and Owen and Bunyan, whose tombs make Bun- 
hill Cemetery venerable-—were standing for Christ at home. But no 
Friends or Baptists or Dissenters developed men of religious force enough 
to change or divert the tide of the time. 

In the Established Church the case was worse. Charles II., 












































ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


5 


“the M errv,” was heartless and immoral ; fashion and rank followed in 
his train. Philosophers admired “the noble savage in his “state of 
nature/ and literature became carnal and frivolous. “Tom Jones/ then 
wildly popular, has in our day been forbidden to circulate. 

Wh en now “ruin hangs over the Church, “all Christianity is 
banished and despised’’ (so groaned surviving believers); when all seems 
sinking in darkness and decay, the living God was training for Himself 
a familv and a character through whom He might open a gate of mercy 
upon England and mankind. 



THE EARLY WESLEYS. 

if \ Y E of them is dimly seen four hundred vears before John Wesley 
‘ beo-an his work. A caliph of Bagdad had, a thousand vears ago, 
hired from beyond the Caspian fifty thousand Tartar horsemen. From 
these came the Turks of to-day. They were now in Asia Minor, threat¬ 
ening Europe. The Western kings proposed a crusade against them, and 
Edward III. promised to join these. His wars in France hindered this, 
but Englishmen went as volunteers, and among them a Wesley (1340) 
o-ave his life for the safetv of Christendom with the self-devotion so 
marked in later generations. 

PZarly in the seventeenth century Sir Herbert W esley of W est- 
leigh, whose wife was a Wellesley of Ireland, sent to Oxford University 
his son Bartholomew. This son, though impassioned for medicine, 
became a clergyman and a Puritan. On King Charles’s return he was 
exiled from his parish of Charmouth, and by the Five Mile Act forbidden 
to come near his loving people. His medical skill then served him well. 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


John Wesley, his son, was horn in 1636. At Oxford he was 
second to none in the “bright succession of his lamily, and wi th h is 

o 

learning went a deep-toned piety. He was not ordained; he reckoned 
himself called not to the office but to the work of the ministry, an d Wh ite 
Church, Winterbourne, invited him as pastor. Dr. Ironside, Bishop of 
Bristol, summoned him for preaching without ordination, He told the 
Bishop his convictions, his labors, and their results. “ I will not meddle 
wi th you, said the Bishop. 

But the good man was to taste a cup of bitterness. He was 
heavily fined ; was four times imprisoned ; was driven from place to place ; 
was supported by the gifts of loving Christians; and at the age of forty- 
two laid down the burden of the flesh and passed from suffering into 
peace. His father bent in sorrow over his grave in Preston churchyard, 
to-day a nameless grave. All this was lor conscience’ sake, a conscience 
which his sons and grandsons never shared. To them the Book of Com- 
mon Braver was joy and strength ; to him it was abomination. 

Of his four sons, Matthew became a London physician; Samuel 
parted from his Dissenting ancestry. He had many reasons for remain¬ 
ing with them, but, after calmlv weighing the matter, he walked to Ox- 
ford, and, with forty-five shillings in his pocket, entered as “servitor at 
Exeter College. By various industry—even by writing wretched poetry 
—he lived, and in five years he graduated with five times his entrance 

j o 

capital. He became a priest, chaplain of a man-of-war, then curate 
in London. 

Susanna Annesley was of the noble house of the Earl of Anglesea. 
H er father was one of the noblest men of the day. He stood high with 
Cromwell, and “the men < )f rel lgion” reckoned him “an Israelite indeed.” 
DeFoe,who wrote “Robinson Crusoe,” thought him a perfect man. Strong, 

































AR T GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


9 



Tfyt Charter a 



majestic, wealthy, and benevolent, he was a daily blessing to his brethren, 
who were, like himseli, exiled for non-conformitv and bore want and sick¬ 
ness also. At his death they told of 
his good deeds, and the Countess of 
A nglesea wished burial in her kins- 

o 

man’s grave. 

Susanna was the twenty-fourth of 
his children; she was mother of nine¬ 
teen. How did these English families 
replenish the earth ! Sir Charles Lely painted her sister’s portrait as a 
beauty ot the time, but declared Susanna far more beautiful. At thirteen 
she had studied the controversies ot the hour, and, rejecting the views 
lor which her father had suffered, she made her home in the Church of 
England. Clear and deep must her convictions have been. On the 
whole, there was in her century no other such woman. One stands by 
her tomb in the heart of busy London, and, recalling England’s heroines, 
feels rising to his lips, “ I hou excellest them all! and of worthies buried 
there, none is worthier. 


EPWORTH. 


y 1 v 

v c ,i A 




HIS word, now abroad in a 11 the world, stands tor so much ot char¬ 
acter and movement as to claim large presentation. It sets before 
us a village of two thousand, no larger now than two hundred years ago, 
on a plain of forty square miles, once an island girted by five rivers, of 
which three have vanished. The old church, St. Andrew’s, with its large 
square tower, commands the town and looks tar over the levels, while in 















10 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM . 


the yard at its venerable base sleep many generations. Here, in 1697, 
came Samuel Wesley at thirty-one and Susanna at thirty. I hey had been 
married nine years ; here for thirty-nine years was their home. 1 hey fou nd 
a seven-room house built in three stories of timber and plaster, as is still 
seen in old English houses, of which some charred relics are still kept 
for memory. There were three acres, with garden and simple fixtures. 

The premises are to-day in quiet beauty. I he house, built after 
the burning of that which the Wesleys entered, is a goodly Queen Anne 

O J 1 <v> J 

in style and of late much enlarged. The people were of the rudest. 
There was hot feud between Churchmen and Dissenters, between natives 
and Dutch families that came in under Cromwell, and the Rector bore 
the brunt of all their malice. 1 hey destroyed his crops, burned his 
house, imprisoned him for debt, worried him forty long years save one, 
yet he was steady in love and labor; among them he lived, died, was 
buried, and from his grave “he being dead yet speaketh. 

The Epworth home was an isle of verdure and fragrance in a 
stormy sea. Mr. Wesley in his study gave himself to sermons and 
rhymes that he dreamed were poems. Out of the study, Mrs. Wesley 
was supreme, over even the grounds and finances. Order was her first 
law. Her child spent its first three months in sleep; then, by dint of 
rocking, it was made to sleep three hours in the morning and as long in 
the afternoon. Alter a year it slept no more in daytime. For five years 
the child had physical training, with control of its will and familiarity 
with the externals of devotion. At five began intellectual labor. One 
day, three hours of the morning and three of the afternoon, was given to 
the mystery of the alphabet. Then a chapter of Genesis was to be per¬ 
fectly spelt and read, and so was made an effective entrance upon educa¬ 
tion. Then began their personal religious culture. “I discoursed every 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


11 


night with each child by itself.’ rhursday evening was given to “Jacky” 
John, and it became to him a secondary Sabbath. 

Ten children thus trained grew to maturity, and five of these were 
of notable gilts and graces. Samuel, the eldest, was (as in a Hebrew 
family) counted “the Lord’s own.” He had a brilliant career at Oxford, 
though he had never spoken until his filth birthday, when the correctness 
of his utterances relieved his mother's fears for the quality of his mind. 
He became a teacher, but died before fifty, when John was about form¬ 
ing the first Methodist Society. Some masterly hymns of his enrich our 
standard collection. The daughters of the house were peers of their 
brothers as they grew in beauty by their side. Mehetable, liveliest of 
all, who read Greek at eight, married, breathed in verse her sorrows, but 
found comlort in the heavenly grace, and Charles at her funeral was sure 
that she had entered into rest. Martha, Mrs. Hall, shone through trials 
with a wretched husband. As years went on, she shared John's love 
and confidence and the homage of London society. “ May you die the last 
of your kindred!” was a Roman curse. M rs. H all outlived the whole 
bright family of Epworth, but she saw all go down in peace, and some 
in splendor, to rise in the eternal morning. History tells of no other such 
household, and Mrs. Hall was happy in seeing all their lives and deaths. 



JOHN AND CHARLES IN THEIR YOUTH. 


fit 


OHX (Benjamin) Wesley was born June 17, 1703, and entered on 
L/ ; that course of training so wise, loving, and inflexible. At six he 

i v -o 

bore for his whole lifetime proof of its beneficial character. Mrs. Wes¬ 
ley “thoroughly conquered betimes” his will, that he might be “governed 




12 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


by the piety and reason of his parents until his own understanding comes 
to maturity and the principles of religion have taken root in his mind.” 
He learned to speak kindly to 
ser v ants, to sav ‘ ‘ B ro t h e r 
Charles,” “Sister Hetty, to 
keep the sense of truth and hon¬ 
or bright with all the household. 

Prayers and collects were early 
put on his lips; they early took 
root in his heart. His physical 
training was strictly maintained, 

O J 

and when at five he be van his 



A ••"•i./E 

'A A/*' V; 1 7r N * 1 
y... • HZ. 






intellectual life, there was al- south leigh church. 

ready in him that state of heart and frame that seemed so early to give 

the world assurance of a man. 

In London, at eleven of the ninth of February, 1750, at a watch- 
night, Wesley suddenly said: “Forty years ago this very day and hour 
I was taken out of the flames!” “ 1 he voice of praise and thanksgiving 
went up from the congregation.’ On that eventful night his father heard 
“ hire! and Hetty ran to tell him that fire had fallen on her face. The 
house was in flames. All quickly escaped; only John was left asleep. 
Awaking amid smoke and flame, he climbed upon a chest to a window. 
H is father, after frantic and fruitless efforts, knelt to pray. A light man 
sprang upon a strong man’s shoulders, reached the window, and snatched 
the child just as the roof fell in. \\ hen the brave man brought the boy, 
the father cried, “Come, neighbors, let us kneel down, let us give thanks 
to God! He has given me my eight children; let the house go; I am 
rich enough.’ In fifteen minutes all had gone. The boy, now at five 





































































ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


15 


and a half, never forgot this night, and years after he set beneath 
his portrait the burning house and himself escaping, with the words, 
“Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? His afterdife showed 
why ! And now for a year the Epworth home was broken up. 
Kindly families took the children in; John went with the Rev. Mr. 
Hume, of the neighborhood. Mrs. Wesley had to begin quite anew her 
kindergarten work and recover her children from the damage wroug ht 

o o o 

bv dispersion, especiallv to their moral ideas and religious feelings. To 
John she was singularly drawn. “I do intend to be more particularly 
careful of the soul of this child, so mercifully provided for,” and she 

communion, and at ten 
he believed that he 
had not sinned away 
the washing ol the 
Holv Ghost given him 
in 

to be saved bv univer¬ 
sal obedience to all 
were thoughtful and 


baptism. He held 


breathed a praver lor 
grace to do it sincerely 
and prudently. Her 
success almost indi¬ 
cates that piety may 
come of wise and lov¬ 
ing care, lor at eight 
John was admitted to 
the Commandments, 
devout. 



Thus even his early years 


A new affluent joined in his ninth year this stream of tendency 
and added to its volume. His father being in London, and the curate 
who supplied being dry enough, preaching ol nothing but the payment 
of debts, Mrs. Wesley began Sunday evening service with her own fam¬ 
ily The neighbors begged to come, and soon forty were attending. 
Then more than two hundred were listening as she read choice sermons 
and gave personal advices, while no ears were quicker than John’s. • To 
him on Thursday evening she gave special care, forming his young judg- 




16 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM . 


ment on matters as to which (she could not see) he was to do so much 
towards forming the judgment of the world. 

Here came on a pleasant controversy between Mr. and Mrs. 
Wesley. The curate, Inman, reported to Mr. Wesley (then at convoca¬ 
tion in London) his wife’s “irregularity, and he proposes that some other 
than a woman officiate. She answers: “ Wh ere is the harm of this?” 
Not a man could read without spelling; the slender voices of her boys 
could reach but few, and none outside the- open doors and windows. 
But h er congregations became larger than the curate’s. This worthy 

O C? o „ 

then called them “conventicles,” a name vile to a churchman’s ears, and, 
with some men of influence, demanded of Mr. Wesley their suppression. 
Mrs. W esley’s conscience braced her courage. She would stop such 
gatherings for no man’s grumbling. It was saving the common people 
from immorality; it was filling up the Epworth Church; some who for 
years had not been seen there were now in attendance. Vet she would 
obey if her husband and Rector would command her to desist, for he 
would then be responsible. Mr. Wesley heard the curate preach on the 
Nature of Faith, and th e second sentence was: “It makes a man pay 
his debts as soon as he can ”! “ M y case is lost,” said he, am l Mrs. 
Wesley went on with her labors. 

Thus John W esley had his early mind impressed with an object- 
lesson of conscience, loyalty, and zeal. His mother’s heart was aflame 
with love for her poor neighbors; she would give of her best for their 
relief; but to the voice of law she would listen and church order she 
would not break. In these tempers the hearts of mother and son were 
fashioned alike. 

The Epworth home seemed all at once to have other inmates 
than the Wesleys ! Some one unseen rattled the windows, clashed metals, 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM , 


17 


and gave to song and speech deep accompaniments unknown to the art 
of music. It slammed doors, lilted latches, danced “as with shoes con¬ 
taining no feet. It thundered amen at prayers, and was furious if Mr. 
W esley prayed for the king. It had sell-respect, for it one called it a 
rat it burst into a storm of wrathful capers. Mr. Wesley it defied; 
Mrs. Wesley it obeyed as Ariel obeyed Prospero. It became an enter¬ 
tainment, blameless and harmless, and for two months enlivened in a 
merrv way the Epworth home. “There are more things in heaven and 
earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy! The lad 
learned to believe in the lact of a spiritual world, but when others, as 

Dr. Johnson, were affected by such be- 
lief, he, without tear or care, let it alone. 
He believed in God ; he knew his own 
calling, and to spirits ol all sorts his 
word was, “What have I to do with 
thee ? I his goblin in the house did 
the bov reasonable service. 

And now the smallpox! Of every 
five persons born in England one died of this foul malady. Airs. Mon¬ 
tagu's inoculation was just come; Dr. Jenner’s vaccination was a century 
behind. Five of the Epworth children were at one time ill with it. 
“Jackv,” wrote his mother, “has borne the disease bravely, like a man; 
and, indeed, like a Christian." He looked sourly and silently at his 
sores, and his half-Spartan training in youthful self-control now served 
him well. 

H is life at Epworth soon closes; the fledgelings outgrow the nest. 
In thirtv years from this date there was no Wesley at Epworth, only the 
father’s tomb. At his last visit, nearly seventy years later than this, 



BOCARDO DEBTOR’S PRISON. 



18 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM . 


Wesley savs: “Taking a solitary walk in the churchyard, I felt the 

J j O 

truth of ‘one generation goeth and another generation cometh. See 
how the earth drops its inhabitants as the tree drops its leaves!’ 



SCHOOL DAYS. 

j§||T ten and a half John Wesley went from Epworth to the Charter 
IMl House School. A hundred years before this time, Sir Thomas 
Sutton, a merchant, proposing to devote his fortune to benevolence, had 
bought the Duke of Norfolk’s London residence, Howard House, Alders- 
gate. This he had endowed as a hospital for the aged and a school lor 
the young. I he buildings are said to be now in removal, a historic loss, 
for in Wiclif’s day they were built as a Chartreuse monastery, and here 
Sir Thomas M ore and Dean Colet had retreated from the world’s cares. 
As a school, it has sheltered Addison, Grote, and Thackeray. Its boys 
usually number forty, while in the hospital are eighty gentlemen in pov¬ 
erty and decay. T or all th ese the Sutton bounty, by that feature of 
English law by which one may safely endow a dog or a rookery, provides 
for now three hundred years an ample support. 

In W esley’s day the big boys fagged the little ones with utter 
tyranny. They held the lads to hard service and took away their meat! 
“From ten to fourteen 1 had little but bread to eat, and little of that. 
Th is was so far from hurting me that I believe it laid the foundation of 
lasting health.” Wesley was patient and cheerful. His personal beauty 
and ready wit and speech made him the delight of the younger boys, and 
they even preferred his harangues to their games and play. Samuel, the 




ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


19 


elder brother, had at this time come from Oxford to be usher at the 
Westminster School. \\ ith him John spent an occasional interval, and 
Samuel writes to their father: “Jacky is a brave boy, giving you no 
discouragement; learning Hebrew as fast as he can. In two vears 
Ch arles came to W estminster, and so for four years the three brothers 
were in London together. I he Duke of Buckingham, who had appointed 
John to the Charter House (as our boys are appointed to West Point or 
Annapolis), had no occasion to regret his friendship for the family. The 
Faculty of the school paid him their highest compliment when, in his 
seventeenth year, they chose him to represent them as student at Christ 
Ch urch College, Oxford, thus giving him the best educational opportu- 
mtv in England. All his life he loved the school that so honored him, 
and for nearly seventy years he took through its grounds a tour of rever- 
ence and affection. Fortv years later he says: “The school-boys look 
so little ! Yet I myself was little when in school, and the upper boys, 
being taller and bigger than I, seemed very tall and big. Alas! he at 
school declined from the piety that he gamed at his mother’s knee. “I 
was negligent of outward duties and guilty of outward sins. I hoped to 
be saved bv not being so bad as others, by having a kindness for religion, 
and by reading the Bible, going to church, and saving my prayers. His 
reading the Bible was his anchor, but where was “universal obedience”? 



WESLEY AT OXFORD. 


>1 

m 


^E entered Christ Church, the college founded by Cardinal Wolsey, 
from which his brother Samuel had graduated. Prom the funds 
of Charter House he had forty pounds a year, a support ample for the 




20 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


times, and he gratified his patrons by quickly coming to the front. He 
showed “the finest classical taste, the most liberal and manly sentiments. 
He was gay and sprightly, of polished wit and winning manners. Al¬ 
ready he was writing poetry, and his father, seeing in his son the gilt for 
which himself had longed in vain, urged him “not to bury his talent. 
H is health was not good and he was always beyond his income, coming 
to deficits which his friends were poorly able to make good. He took 
matters cheerfully; “I am pretty safe from robbers! ’ At Oxford he 
found himself with no sense of inward holiness, but he did not depart 
from the habits of formal devotion in which he had been trained. He 
had “transient fits of what is called repentance.” 1 he college porter was 
thanking God for “a heart to love Him and a desire to serve Him.” \\ esley 
felt that the lowly man had something which himself was lacking. In 
his fifth year at college his searchings of heart began, and he proposed 
to enter the clerical calling. His mother was glad, though his father pre¬ 
ferred that he devote himself to critical learning. Yet he gave his son 

o o 

salutary counsel: “Your motive must be the glory of God and the edifi¬ 
cation of your neighbor.” “The best commentary on the Bible is the 
Bible itself.” Now, too, he found a pious man, whose name he does not 
give, who helped him towards the life that he was seeking. In his fifth 
collegiate year, attending the funeral of a young lady at St. Mary’s, he 
met an intimate friend, who, like himself, was touched at the sad event. 
He begged to be allowed to do this man “the greatest possible kindness 
by bringing him to Christ, as we both will know when we follow that 
young woman.” The friend yielded, and, dying eighteen months after, 
requested \\ esley to preach at his funeral. He was W esley’s first con¬ 
vert, leading what a train! How, like the milky way in the sky of June, 
have the many whom he turned to righteousness followed him as their 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


21 


bright particular star, reflecting on them the beams of the Sun Eternal ! 

In September of this year the Bishop of Oxford ordained him 
deacon, and three years later, priest in the cathedral of his college. “ Do 
you know, ’ asked his examiner, “that he who would live a Christian 
priest must expect every man’s hand to be against him? A prophecy 
coming true in \Y eslev s own hie! 

I he Archbishop ol Canterbury said to him, “ Do not waste time 
and strength on things ol a disputable nature. Testilv against open vice; 
promote real holiness;’ advice which W eslev illustrated when he declared 
his errand to be “to spread scriptural holiness throughout these lands.’’ 
At South Leigh, a little village, he preached in October the first of his 
fortv thousand sermons. Forty-six vears later he preached at the same 
place, and one hearer of the former sermon was present at the latter. 
His next was at the funeral ol an Epworth boy. “The child is dead; 
wherefore should I weep? was his text. His career as preacher was 
now fairly begun. His father wrote him “nought else but blessing,” 
reminding him that “our M aster endured something more than being 
laughed at on His wav to glorv, and unless we track His steps, in vain do 
we hope to share that glory. 

This twentv-third vear of his saw his highest academic honor. 
How enduring lor good are benefactions to seats ol learning! As Christ 
Church College outlived Wolsey and the frost that nipped his fortunes, 
and now, beyond its three hundredth year, is green with Iragrant verdure, 
so Lincoln College, founded by William, Bishop of Lincoln, unweakened 
by time, still diffuses its blessings. It supported twelve Fellows, who 
gave themselves to liberal study, and Wesley was unanimously chosen to 
their number. His energy of mind was already remarkable. His skill 
in lo o-'ic was universally admired; he became lecturer in Greek and man- 


22 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


ager of the classes, and many other services were crowded upon him, 
and he early seemed the luminous center of Lincoln. “Wesley’s Room’ 
and “Wesley’s Vine, ’ climbing its window, are still shown the reverent 
visitor. H ere he took the motto, “ Leisure and I have taken leave of 
one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, d my health is so 
long indulged me.” He became Master of Arts in 1727, after seven 
years of residence. 

Now he framed that system of life, physical, intellectual, and 
religious, which, like Mozart’s W orkshop of Genius, gave him for sixty 
years his wonderful power of achievement. Self-control had come to him 
from his mother’s training; his own conscious will now uses it. In four 
days he changed his hour of rising from seven to four, and after sixty 
years he rose at four, never losing a quarter of an hour’s sleep in a month. 
Wh en specially weary he could take ten minutes’ sleep as readily as one 
takes a glass of water, and it was his “chief nourisher at life’s feast. In 
all matters of diet he was equally resolute. He would not eat between 
meals. II offered fruit or the like, “Thank you, I will think of it,” was 
his answer. In study he had already found that many things, though 
true, are not worth knowing, but, with a memory like Macaulay’s and 
great industry, he grasped widely and was rapidly becoming one of the 
lords of the human mind. He was fond comrade with Euclid and New¬ 
ton ; he anticipated something of modern science. 

Going to his new place in Lincoln College, he set himself to be¬ 
come a real Christian. He found for this a help in the fact that he knew 
“notone person” in Lincoln, and he determined to give no time to com¬ 
pany that would not “help him on his way to heaven.” From this rule he 
departed only when he could help others on that way, and this, indeed, 
might be called a mode of really helping himself. 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


23 


Suddenly now he left Oxford, and for two years was helper to 
his lather at Rpworth. \\ roote, a dull hamlet with people rude and 
dull, amid the bogs five miles from Epworth, became his home. He 
could visit his father only by boat through the swampy channels, and the 
ague, native to the place, completed his discomfort. “ I saw no fruit of 
my labor.’’ He later knew why. He took it for granted that the people 
were believers, needing no repentance, brutal as they were, and “ I laid 
no foundation of repentance or believing in Christ.” His slight healing, 
though well meant, healed nobody. Dr. Morley, Rector of Lincoln Col¬ 
lege, now recalled \\ eslev, and he returned to enter on his career as 
Methodist. M eanwhile, as John left Christ Church for Lincoln, Charles, 
five vears vounger, had come to the vacant place. His school days under 
his brother Samuel had made Charles a High Churchman. He was 
well trained, but, having more money than John, he meant to have a bet¬ 
ter time. “What! would you have me be a saint all at once?” was his 
answer when John spoke to him of religion. But life soon assumed for 
him a deeper meaning. 



METHODISM’S MORNING AT OXLORD. 


J^^^H ILE W esley was with the agues and barbarisms of W roote, 
Ui Charles and three or four others had formed a group for the pro- 

i j 

motion of piety, and of this he became the natural leader. He was 
bevond the others in learning, experience, and collegiate position ; he was 
active, steady, and discreet, without passion, humor, or self-confidence; 
he had unconsciously the air of one born to command, softened though 



24 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


it was by gentleness and courtesy. The warmest heart among them 
was \\ llliam Morgan, an Irishman, who hrst opened and led their way 
to works of love and charity. He, with noble longings for human wel¬ 
fare, was the first to enter into rest and leave to others his poor, his sick, 
and his prisoners. Others ol the society came to good report in later 
service. A gentleman of Christ Church, noticing the exact system on 
which these men lived, called out, “Here is a new sect of Methodists 
sprung up! The name, quaint and lightly given, was good and came 
to stay, though Wesley kindly aided him that gave it and showed him 
that the “new sect were neither queer nor narrow. 1 he name had once 
been worn by a school of physicians, who would cure all maladies by a 
regimen of diet and exercise. It had been given to some Non-conform- 
ist divines of “most straitest views. Henceforth it takes a sense world¬ 
wide, earnest, and refreshing. “The Holy Club’’ was at first the frequent 
name and Wesley was called its “ Father. Its four members (at the first 
year’s end there were but five) spent their evenings in reading, prayer, 
and discussion, and they seem to have set some brief religious exercise 


on each of their waking hours. 

Yet these were not the men to cultivate piety for its own sake or 
to gather the fruits of righteousness for their own consumption. Bar¬ 
tholomew’s Day (of dreadful memory in France) was, in i 730, a morning 
of heaven’s own dew in England. That day Morgan led the Holy Club 
to the Oxford prison, to a man soon to hang for wife-murder, to felons 
of various guilt, to debtors in pitiless misery. It was as if a new gate of 
mercy had opened on mankind. They now visited the prison twice a 
week, and planned to visit the sick of the neighborhood unless the parish 
ministers should oppose. The heart of the Rector of Epworth warmed 
into gladness as tidings of this came to his ears. “I bless God that He 




ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


25 


has given me two sons to war against the world and the devil! “Go 

w o 

on in God’s name! My heart and prayers are with you.'’ 

Now appears upon the scene the greatest orator of the century, 
whose lips, “wet with Castahan dew,’ were to speak the mind of God to 
man as none ever spoke it before or since. \\ hitefield, born at Bristol, 
was ten years younger than W eslev. His surroundings were vicious. 
“From my cradle to my manhood I can see nothing in myself but a fit¬ 
ness to be damned. ’ At fifteen, when with “blue apron and snuffers” 
he was waiter in a hotel, Kempis’s “ Imitation of Christ came to his hand. 
It stirred his heart; he became devout, and even made, while yet a waiter, 
some religious discourses. Longing for education, he went to Oxford as 
servant to other students. No monk of old was ever more severe than 
he in every rigor of self-denial and godly exercise, but “ I knew no more 
that I was to be born a new creature in Christ Jesus than if I was never 
born at all. For a year at Oxford he did not meet the Methodists, 
though he “loved them, defended them, and longed to be with them. 
At last he was introduced to Charles, and their hearts at once were kin¬ 
dred. The poetic and the oratorical tempers are closely neighboring, 
and the greatest Christian orator and the greatest C hnstian poet, like 
drops of water, mingled into one. W hitefield was at home in all the ways 
of the Holv Club. “They built me up daily.” 

About this time new perils arose. The average life of the L ni- 
versitv, as of all England, was ungodly. The gentry were dissipated; 
the lower classes brutal; the learned unbelieving. \\ hitefield, and not 
he alone, inclined to Mysticism, the temper that goes quietly away from 
the world and cultivates its own inner self. He walked in the fields and 
prayed apart and silently. From this barren life \\ eslev summoned him 
as with a trumpet call. “ I was delivered from those wiles of Satan.” 


26 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


The work of the Holy Club went on, both in the Bocardo, where debtors 
were confined, and in the Castle, the prison of criminals, as among the 
sick and poor of Oxford and its surroundings. 

\\ esley was becoming an itinerant. He and Charles went on 
foot to many a place of service, to Epworth even, and in one year he 

rode more than a thousand miles, reading as 
he rode. In the next fifty years his journeys 
as preacher covered a quarter of a million of 
miles. Thu s was preparing in Oxford a com¬ 
pany of young men, really three, since the 
\\ esleys and \\ hitefield are the great figures 
on the held, in whom Divine Providence was 
to energize for the renewal of the Church and 
the rescue of society. 

Epworth once more comes in view. The 
aged Rector was anxious that the home of 
forty years should remain in the family. He 
was anxious for the people whom he had loved, and he dreaded lest some 
rude or careless hand, some unloving temper, should mar the vineyard 
that he had cherished. The people had “great love and longing for 
John. The eldest brother joined in the effort at persuasion. John’s 
answer is remarkable. It is not merely that his engagements at Oxford 
were great and growing and congenial, but “the care of two thousand 
souls at Epworth would crush me”! This from the man for whom soon 
the world was none too wide! He thought he could not in a parish 
home resist for a month intemperance in sleeping, eating, and drinking, 
irregularity in study, and general “softness and self-indulgence.” Yet 
he carried his self-denial w ith no jot abated through every shifting of his 









ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM 


27 

varied life. In the April of 1735 Samuel W esley died, after thirty-nine 
years of service at Epworth. Among his words of comfort to his family 
were these, as he laid his hands on Charles’s head: “Be steady. The 
Christian faith will surely revive in this kingdom : you shall see it, though 
I shall not.’ To his daughter Emily his word was, “Do not be con- 
cerned at my death; God will then begin to manifest Himself to my 
family.’ And so, with a comfortable “inward witness” of acceptance 
in Christ, he at sunset passed through glory’s morning gate and walked 
in Paradise. The Epworth home was broken. Soon, too, the home of 
kindred souls at Oxford was broken. 



GEORGIA. 


1732 George II. by charter created a colony between P lorida and 
SI the Carolinas. He had done this at the request of General Ogle¬ 
thorpe, a humane and gifted man, who meant it for the home of the poor, 
the debtors, and the hopeless. The next year saw the coming of its first 
colonists with General Oglethorpe as Governor. Dr. Burton, of Oxford, 
was a trustee of the colony, and he urged Wesley to found there a mis¬ 
sion. Wesley was perplexed. His mother’s word was, “Had I twenty 
sons, I should rejoice were they all so employed!” I he work of the 
Gospel, far from the world’s vanities, seemed to himself attractive, and he 
agreed to u-o, at the sending of the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 
pel in Foreign Parts, on an errand that was to fail of its direct purpose, 
but to have in its failure a strange and golden profit. Charles went as 



28 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM . 


the Governor’s secretary. Benja¬ 
min Ingham went at Wesley’s re- 
quest; one Delamotte went from a 
passionate love of Wesley. The 
Holy Club now vanishes from Ox- 
ford. The others (save Whitefield) 
drift into the dim unknown, and 
so might the Wesleys seem to do 
when, October 21st, they steered 
from Gravesend for the boundless 
main. 





The Storm at Sea. 


The voyage saw in them no idleness. The Simmonds , their ship, 
had over a hundred colonists, and the Governor treated his missionaries 
with every possible regard. On board were twenty-six Moravians with 
their bishop, and Wesley began the study of German to converse with 
them. The ship was for three months his Oxford. Duties were timed 
as carefully; prayer, study, and religious converse were as faithfully done 
as at the University, and at night the Master gave His servants sleep like 
H is own on the waves of Galilee. Many a storm broke over the vessel, and 
once the ship seemed likely to go to the bottom. The English were in 
a panic, but the Germans were calm. “Amid the storm they sang. ’ 
“W ere you not afraid?’ was his question. One said, “No, I thank 
God.” “But were not your women and children?’’ “No; our women 
and children are not afraid to die.’ Wesley laid this on his own heart 
and on his crying, trembling English neighbors. Here was what neither 
he nor they had attained. After landing he consulted a Moravian min 
ister, Spangenberg, as to plans of labor. “ I must first ask you, ” said 
this man, “have you the witness in yourself that you are a child of God?” 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


29 


Surprised, Wesley could not answer. “Do you know Jesus Christ?” 
“I know that He is the Savior of the world, said Wesley. “True; but 
do you know that He has saved yoti ?" “ I hope He has died to save me.” 

W esley feared his own answers were “mere words. He had never seen 
the like ol this Moravian piety. These people “adorned the Gospel 
ol our Lord in all things.” The simplicity and solemnity of their 
exercises, under their bishop or pastor, recalled the early Church, where 
a fisherman or a tentmaker presided with the demonstration of the Spirit 
and of power. 

W esley found his home on a charming bend of the river, still bear¬ 
ing the name Savannah. It then had five hundred people. His coming 
created attention. An intended dancing party was given up for his first 
sermon, and he found almost the gold and apparel of a London congre¬ 
gation. Charles went to b redrica, a hundred miles to the south, a place 
ol malice and slander, ol ungodliness and opposition that well-nigh broke 
his heart. His lile was in peril; weary and battled, he in August sailed 
for England. John went to Fredrica, but could do nothing. 

At Savannah the beginning was fair. His “objective” was a 
mission to the Indians, and he longed to stand beneath their live-oaks 
and tell them of the Savior. But his official place was Savannah, and 
the settlers beeped him not to leave them. Delamotte had begun a 
school with a few orphans; it was now ol forty, and he was as faithful in 
pravers and catechism as in reading and accounts. W esley, learning that 
scholars with shoes and stockings despised the destitute, took lor a week 
the teacher's place in bare feet! So unconscious was his air and so close 
his work that he cured all vanity. Religious thought and feeling pre¬ 
vailed and the settlement began to show the divine favor. Wesley had 
sendee in French, German, and Italian, and was in the fullness of Chris- 


30 


ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 


tian and churchly labor. “ I had ease, honor, and abundance, as I 
neither wished nor expected in America. Now came a bitter experience. 
Oglethorpe was wishing Wesley to marry'and remain at Savannah. His 
chief agent, Causton, had a niece, beautiful, elegant in manners, and 
intelligent. Wesley made her acquaintance, but she soon went to Fred- 
nca. He there saw her in dreary mood, comfortless in piety, and bent 
on returning to England. He remembered his sacred calling, and ex¬ 
plained to her the calls and consolations of religion. Confidence grew 
between them ; she encouraged him in his trials at Fredrica, and when 
they returned by the same boat to Savannah he found the six-days pass¬ 
age slow but “not tedious”! 1 he lady, Sophy Hopkey, was often in his 
company; she cared for him in a five-days illness (from eating flesh at 
Oglethorpe’s table and desire); she dressed after, as she supposed, his 
taste; she followed his advice in diet. W es ley was deeply impressed, 
and their marriage seemed not improbable. Then misgivings arose in 
his own mind, not as to her merit, but her fitness to his life and work. 
The matter was frankly laid before the Moravian elders, and their calm, 
prayerful advice was that he “proceed no farther in this business. “The 
will of the Lord be done!” said Wesley. A month later the lady mar¬ 
ried a wealthy settler, and “my friend performed what I could not” (the 
wedding rite). Wesley’s sorrow was, forty-nine years later, still fresh. 
“I was pierced through as with a sword, but my comfort was that He 
who made the heart can heal the heart. With such a companion I might 
have set up my rest in this world and forgotten the work for which I 
was born.” So was the desire of his eyes taken away with a stroke. 
H is enforcement of the church rubric as to the sacraments brought such 
a storm of trouble that he now decided to return to England. His expe¬ 
rience in Georgia had been valuable. In perfect health, he had preached 




Art Glimpses of Methodism. 


Prospectus. 


'iff HE aim of this work is to gave such an account of Methodism as will, 
while the world stands, be of value to those interested in the welfare 
of the h uman race. It proposes to tell, with reasonable brevity, 
the rise and progress of a development of Christianity the greatest in 
modern time, d not in all time, since the Dispensation began, which can 
never lose its charm, whether as a historical or a religious movement. 
It is a historvof love energized from on high, of exertion the most intense 
possible to human faculties, attended with patience, courage, and self- 
sacrifice, such as the behavior of men never continuously exhibits, and, 
indeed, never attains unless by a power in men, but not of men, that 
makes for heroism. Such a record the Christian world cannot too well 
or too often ponder; can never willingly let die; it is forever a treasure 
and a joy. 

Th is volume shows the movement as it centered at Epworth and 
Oxford, in hearts that can be counted on the fingers of one hand; then, 
how it radiated over England and the British Empire. Preliminary to 
this, it shows the efforts of men stirring for a like purpose in earlier Eng¬ 
lish days, and especially the struggles of the century next preceding 
Methodism, struggles in which W eslev’s ancestors took their share. 

o o 

Then follows an account of those ancestors on both the father’s side and 
the mother’s, and of the home and training of the bright family at 
Epworth. 

Dropping nearly from view the other members of the family, the 
volume traces the course of John and Charles at school and college, the 
forming and working of the Holy Club, and the rise above the horizon 
of Whitefield, whose name from the beginning until now is highest in the 
records of sacred elocpience. We shall see what darkness was upon Eng¬ 
land, and how upon its chilling gloom star after star arose and shone, 
and at last a morning glow of life tinges the land, is the burden of the 

o o o 

following numbers. 

O 

The Wesleys and Whiteheld, the Countess of Huntingdon, and 
the helpers that rose at their side; the plans of these, their high-hearted 
temper, their struggles, their heroisms, and their victories—all these are 
like the changeful excitements of a wide battle-field, and in these, as in 
the myths of the Greek heroes, the divine takes part in the strife and 








1 



ART GLIMPSES OF METHODISM. 

makes sure the victory. Deeds of daring and suffering fill the pages, 
while love and truth brighten the story. 

W e see the usages and institutions of Methodism come each to 
its place as quietly and naturally as leaves come to the trees in spring¬ 
time, and a Church inside of the great English national Church is formed 
before one is hardly aware of the forming process. Then comes expan¬ 
sion. There is a movement to occupy the whole world, for it is the 
founder’s parish. From W ales, now made a better land than its bards 
and Druids ever saw, the revival enters fair France. It touches with 
light Africa, western and southern ; it reaches the South Seas and plants 
itself on the Sixth Continent, Australia. Cannibals become Christians, 
and tribes marked by every horror of conduct become clean, generous, 
and affectionate. 

Th is newness of life, thus spreading over England and touching 
the ends of the earth, is spangled with personal characters as the sky is 
spangled with stars. On every page of this volume will appear some one 
whose life is itself a treasure. We shall never tire of gazing at John 
Wesley, who leads the march; at Whitefield, whose voice calls like a sil¬ 
ver trumpet; at Charles Wesley, cheering it with soul-animating song; 
at Mrs. Wesley, Fadv Huntingdon, Mrs. Fletcher, who shed upon it the 
tender grace of woman hood. 

o 

This volume gives all of English Methodism that the American 

o o 

Methodist or the American Christian needs to know. It brings the 
record down to our own day, not in fullness of detail, but in clear outline 
and with contents carefully digested. 

Every important person, every significant movement is given in 
true historical harmony, and the narrative is enlivened with incident and 
anecdote illustrative of the people and their times. These the volume 
traces through nearly two centuries. The leaven of the Wesleyan revival 
has been working in England about a hundred and sixty years. It was 
working in Epworth parsonage a generation earlier. It works to-day with 
unweari ed energy. I he history of its working is as worthy of reading as 
is any part of the annals of Christianity or of mankind. That history 
this volume aims to give in a style— 

“ Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; 

Strong, without rage; without overflowing, full.” 


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